I wonder sometimes what the Pre-Socratic philosophers did with their time. They did not have the “distractions” of books, films, internet, newspapers or TV. My conclusion is that they spent a lot of time in deep thought.

In this 21^st century on July 2, 2019 I have no job in sight, no financial worries and most of my preoccupation is spent trying to solve with my Rosemary whatever problems our immediate problem might have.

Our communication is something like this, “Alex have you seen Niño (our male cat)? Or I might say, “Rosemary Niña (our female) cat seems to want to be fed.” I often ask Rosemary, “Do we have anything we have to do tomorrow?” Her usual answer in the negative is always a relief.

We watch little TV and rarely go to the movies. We are not stuck in any cable serial TV series. We eat twice a day of which one meal is breakfast in bed over the NY Times and the Vancouver Sun.

While I am certainly not Epicurus or Democritus I do spend a lot of time thinking. Not all of it is in deep thought.

Consider my going to the back lane to throw some of our plant stuff into the green bin and observing the almost spent flowers on one of the scapes (hosta nomenclature for stalk) of my Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’. This is one of the largest of the yellow/gold hostas. Its leaves have thick substance and they can take lots of sun. I cut the scape and here you can see the scan.

There is an elegance that I might not have noticed had I been busy reading a novel or watching the news. I noticed the scape’s elegance because of my idle time.

I have scanned this plant before so you can observe various interpretations of a plant that I might not really have noticed in its details had I had many roses to look at. 

The roses today are all but gone. Those that will re-bloom will do so in a few weeks. Meanwhile the erstwhile hidden grace is something that gives me pleasure and no guilt in having been lost in thought about writing this now.